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Web of Science database: Web of Science (WoS) Data

An overview of the Web of Science Database focusing on the types of data it contains.

Web of Science Database

Incites analysis is based on data from Web of Science (WoS).  About Web of Science:

  • Very large bibliographic database.
    • Records for every article in over 20,000 journals.
    • Over 155 million articles indexed, with over 3 million articles indexed each year
    • For some journals, indexing extends back to the year 1900.
  • Citation database structure.
    • From a given article, link to articles cited by that given article, that is, those that are in its reference list.  (Backward from time of publication of the given article.)
    • From a given article, link to articles citing the given article, that is, those for which the given article is cited their reference lists.  (Forward from time of publication of the given articles.)
      • Citation counting then is the basis for many metrics.
    • Science citation index concept by Eugene Garfield.  Garfield's original proposal, published in Science in 1955, is republished here.
  • Core Collection search includes highest level of metadata detail, and useful for most purposes.
    • Searchable by author, title, journal, organizational affiliation, funding agency, etc.
      • Sort results by Most Cited, or by Most Recent, etc.
    • 254 subject categories.
      • Categorization is at journal level, not article by article.
      • A journal can be in more than one subject category.
  • Marked Lists are useful to collect data for analysis or download.  
    • Marked list can be 50,000 items for registered users.
  • Analyze Results and Citation Report yield aggregate information of some kinds.
  • Web of Science help pages here.
    • Training materials here.

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